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Complete Celt - EXS

AMG bring you a special collection of Celtic multisamples created by the team that brought you the two volume triple audio CDs of licks - Complete Celt! All instruments are carefully sampled note-for-note and instruments featured are:

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be. Once upon a time the instruments in this collection were revered as technological wonders, titans of musical prowess. It sometimes took several large men to carry them to and from your gig, and they often cost more in maintenance than their purchase price.

Nowadays, we buy and sell instruments rapidly, change our software more often than our underwear, and generally regard few things as permanent, let alone classic. I believe there are a lot of musicians around today who have never seen a real Hammond B3 or played a Fender Suitcase, and probably don't even care to. But the sounds of these instruments still carry a vibe. We know the sounds from famous recordings, and those sounds are imbued with character from the music that was played on them. So, in our contemporary disposable way, we borrow, appropriate, and freely use and abuse those references. I don't think there is anything wrong with this; it's the natural progression of culture to undermine it's predecessors. The original blues riffs of Robert Johnson now find themselves in Underground Garage or a Madonna track.

Brian Eno has pointed out that it's often the weaknesses of a system that lends it an appeal. Poor amplification technology gave us distorted guitars, for instance, or the cracking of a singer's voice gives an impression that the emotion is larger than the vehicle that carries it. Therefore, most of the instruments in this collection have been sampled in a very "honest" way, leaving the grit and grime that characterizes them in tact. There are a few suspect keys in some of the organs and electric pianos, which were flaws on the original instrument that I sampled.

Anyway, in short, the idea of this collection is to put all of these standard, venerable antique keyboard instruments in one place for easy access. Hope you find it useful.

Some of the patches are very large. Four of the five Hammond patches for example, are in stereo and looped at the Leslie cycle, and include every note. Throughout the collection, the letters LM in a patch name indicate "Low Memory". For some of these very large instruments, this gives you an option in case you don't have enough RAM to load the instrument. The Low Memory versions are worth trying in these cases. Otherwise, stick to the large memory originals.